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The Spiral Goddess Collective
What's in a Name? 
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The SGC draws its name from the ancient archetype and modern-day manifestation of the Spiral Goddess, an embodied leader, a revolutionary force of kindness, strength, and compassion as well as the symbolism of the spiral, which is found everywhere in nature. The spiral is a sign of life and as we move through life we may find ourselves arriving at the same place with a new level of understanding. As a collective we recognize that we are stronger together.
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Why Yoga & Conscious Dance?
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Both yoga and conscious dance positively impact our physical, mental, and emotional health and wellness. They allow us to connect the mind and the body—to be more embodied, more grounded, and more present in our lives.
Somatic approaches to yoga & dance focus on the internal experience rather than the the end goal or the way that the movement looks. We dance without mirrors to let go of negative self-talk and competition. |
Photo by Nancy Monroe
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Caregivers & Careworkers
Care Work includes the paid and unpaid labor that goes into caring for ourselves and others mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. The work we do at The SGC is care work and we also provide support those who do care work in our community.
When we spend time caring for others, we need more support to care for ourselves. Our special monthly caregiver's rate is $68 per month for unlimited weekly classes.
We don't ask you to provide proof of the care you give; we only ask that you choose this option if you spend a significant amount of your time caring for others, whether that work is paid or unpaid. And please spread the word to your caregiving friends and coworkers! |
Our Spiral Goddess Radical Careworker's Coven meets once-a-month from September through May. This gathering provides an opportunity for professional networking as well as informal support as we hold space for each other.
Each meeting includes an offering from one of our curators or coven members, providing an opportunity to practice and grow our skills and to share our talents with each other. This coven is open to anyone who considers themselves a radical careworker. For more information, check out Sarah's blog and just reach out if you have any questions. |
Mission Statement
Poster from Peace Resource Project; quote by Kathe Kollwitz. Collage by Sarah Hentges
Spiral Goddess Collective Mission: To provide people in the Bangor community with opportunities for embodied movement toward mind/body/spirit healing and transformation through yoga and conscious dance. We believe that opportunities for exploring healing through embodied, conscious movement—specifically yoga and dance—should not be limited to those who can afford the privilege to attend classes.
The SGC provides free need-based classes through the Spiral Goddess Collective Care Fund, as well as several free and low-cost community events.
The SGC provides free need-based classes through the Spiral Goddess Collective Care Fund, as well as several free and low-cost community events.
Vision Statement
Spiral Goddess Collective Vision: The SGC’s vision is based upon the idea that yoga and conscious dance practices are powerful medicine for all kinds of healing and transformation as well as for nourishment of spiritual growth and exploration. Our vision is a Center that offers embodied movement practices and opportunities for education beyond what is typically offered in fitness and workout facilities. Our vision is a social justice approach to mental, physical, and emotional health, wellness, and fitness. We encourage people to Move and Be Moved.
The programs of SGC emphasize a mind/body connection and encourage authentic movement that feels good. We encourage practices that help us to tap into our inner wisdom and empower us to live our best lives. Our hope is to make yoga and conscious dance classes, healing modalities, and workshops more visible and more accessible to our community, especially those who cannot afford to regularly engage in these practices.
Our approach to fitness, health, and wellness is about embodied movement, mind/body practices, and approaches that consider the whole person as a unique and connected individual. While our programs may help people lose weight, build strength, and meet other fitness goals, our approaches are not about weight loss and they are not performative—we're about what's on the inside, not the outside. We aim to reduce and remove the emotional baggage that weighs us down (which is often an underlying reason why our bodies hold onto excess weight). We are about health at every size, radical self-love, pleasure, joy, rejuvenation, and acceptance of diverse bodies/minds.
The SGC recognizes that the impact of trauma on individuals and communities, as well as on our culture and our world, are devastating. While we all have individual and collective work to do toward healing and transformation, the SGC focuses its mission and vision through the power of embodiment and through tangible tools that include yoga and conscious dance as well as experiential workshops and healing modalities. Everyone who offers classes, programs, and services at the Spiral Goddess Collective goes through an in-house trauma-informed teaching orientation program.*
For some, the SGC’s vision, name, and descriptions might sound a little bit “woo-woo.” However, the yoga and conscious dance practices that SGC offers have plenty of anecdotal evidence as well as scientific backing. SGC might push some of us out of our comfort zones, but that’s part of the point. As one participant put it: “we could all use a little more woo woo in our lives.” Check out Sarah's blog on the subject and this blog by, embodied movement therapist, Jamie Marich for a better understanding of what "woo-woo" entails. It's really nothing to be scared of!
*Our in-house training program is not mean to replace formal training and certifications; it is meant to ensure that everyone teaching and offering programs at the SGC, a Center for Mind/Body Movement has knowledge about trauma and the ways in which it impacts individuals, families, communities, and culture.
The programs of SGC emphasize a mind/body connection and encourage authentic movement that feels good. We encourage practices that help us to tap into our inner wisdom and empower us to live our best lives. Our hope is to make yoga and conscious dance classes, healing modalities, and workshops more visible and more accessible to our community, especially those who cannot afford to regularly engage in these practices.
Our approach to fitness, health, and wellness is about embodied movement, mind/body practices, and approaches that consider the whole person as a unique and connected individual. While our programs may help people lose weight, build strength, and meet other fitness goals, our approaches are not about weight loss and they are not performative—we're about what's on the inside, not the outside. We aim to reduce and remove the emotional baggage that weighs us down (which is often an underlying reason why our bodies hold onto excess weight). We are about health at every size, radical self-love, pleasure, joy, rejuvenation, and acceptance of diverse bodies/minds.
The SGC recognizes that the impact of trauma on individuals and communities, as well as on our culture and our world, are devastating. While we all have individual and collective work to do toward healing and transformation, the SGC focuses its mission and vision through the power of embodiment and through tangible tools that include yoga and conscious dance as well as experiential workshops and healing modalities. Everyone who offers classes, programs, and services at the Spiral Goddess Collective goes through an in-house trauma-informed teaching orientation program.*
For some, the SGC’s vision, name, and descriptions might sound a little bit “woo-woo.” However, the yoga and conscious dance practices that SGC offers have plenty of anecdotal evidence as well as scientific backing. SGC might push some of us out of our comfort zones, but that’s part of the point. As one participant put it: “we could all use a little more woo woo in our lives.” Check out Sarah's blog on the subject and this blog by, embodied movement therapist, Jamie Marich for a better understanding of what "woo-woo" entails. It's really nothing to be scared of!
*Our in-house training program is not mean to replace formal training and certifications; it is meant to ensure that everyone teaching and offering programs at the SGC, a Center for Mind/Body Movement has knowledge about trauma and the ways in which it impacts individuals, families, communities, and culture.
Indigenous Land and Traditions Acknowledgement
Land acknowledgements have begun to be standard practice for many institutions and organizations, as well as for yoga teachers and studios. These statements aren't just an act of bending to the political climate—they are a recognition that the power-over practices of the past continue to reverberate into the present day, impacting the physical, mental, social, cultural, and economic wellness of individuals, communities, and our nation and keeping inequalities firmly in place.
Toward the larger goals of social justice, it is important to recognize that where we are and what we do does not exits in a vacuum. Both the land and the traditions of indigenous peoples influence and support the work we do at The Spiral Goddess Collective as well as the work that all of us who participate in conscious dance and yoga, specifically, and modern life, generally, participate in and benefit from. What does this mean? Part of our work is not just to acknowledge our debt to indigenous people's and traditions, but also to continue to educate ourselves, to honor these roots, and to participate in and support indigenous movements toward, individual, cultural, and collective healing and self-determination. This work is ongoing but it is only a beginning.
Downtown Bangor and The Clark Building, and thus The Spiral Goddess Collective, a Center for Mind/Body Movement, exist on the unceded homelands of the sovereign people of the Wabanaki Confederacy: the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Maliseet, and Mi'kmaq people. The Kenduskeag Stream, a tributary or the Penobscot River, dominates the view from the windows at the front of the SGC center. The Penobscot River continues to be contested territory in the centuries-long struggle for stewardship toward ensuring a healthy ecosystem for all of Maine.
Also framed from this view is the monument to Charles O. Howard, the victim of a hate crime in 1984. While walking down the street, Howard and his boyfriend were harassed for being gay and then Howard was assaulted and thrown over the bridge into the Kenduskeag Stream where he died by drowning. This, too, is a legacy of our land.
Bangor, and the State of Maine, are microcosms for the United States where movements for social justice have been ebbing and flowing since before the U.S. officially became a country. As a part of the legacies of racism, sexism, white supremacy, and imperialism we honor the land where we live, love, breathe, work, and find community. We acknowledge that here in the U.S. what we have was built on stolen land and by forced labor. We pay back this debt by keeping our eyes, ears, minds, and hearts open and settling for nothing less than justice, equity, peace, and love.
Finally, yoga's roots are thousands of years old and part of a larger set of traditions from indigenous practices from India, Africa, and other regions in the world--there is nothing new about embodied practices, but many have been lost, forgotten, or forced out of our cultural norms. The yoga practiced and taught at The SGC, a Center for Mind/Body Movement draws on a variety of traditions, mixing styles and approaches that blend breathing, embodied movement, and meditation. Sarah writes more about these practices and approaches in her blog and in her forthcoming book, American Yoga Demystified: Creative/Critical Insights for a Complex World and an Evolving Mind and Body.
Toward the larger goals of social justice, it is important to recognize that where we are and what we do does not exits in a vacuum. Both the land and the traditions of indigenous peoples influence and support the work we do at The Spiral Goddess Collective as well as the work that all of us who participate in conscious dance and yoga, specifically, and modern life, generally, participate in and benefit from. What does this mean? Part of our work is not just to acknowledge our debt to indigenous people's and traditions, but also to continue to educate ourselves, to honor these roots, and to participate in and support indigenous movements toward, individual, cultural, and collective healing and self-determination. This work is ongoing but it is only a beginning.
Downtown Bangor and The Clark Building, and thus The Spiral Goddess Collective, a Center for Mind/Body Movement, exist on the unceded homelands of the sovereign people of the Wabanaki Confederacy: the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Maliseet, and Mi'kmaq people. The Kenduskeag Stream, a tributary or the Penobscot River, dominates the view from the windows at the front of the SGC center. The Penobscot River continues to be contested territory in the centuries-long struggle for stewardship toward ensuring a healthy ecosystem for all of Maine.
Also framed from this view is the monument to Charles O. Howard, the victim of a hate crime in 1984. While walking down the street, Howard and his boyfriend were harassed for being gay and then Howard was assaulted and thrown over the bridge into the Kenduskeag Stream where he died by drowning. This, too, is a legacy of our land.
Bangor, and the State of Maine, are microcosms for the United States where movements for social justice have been ebbing and flowing since before the U.S. officially became a country. As a part of the legacies of racism, sexism, white supremacy, and imperialism we honor the land where we live, love, breathe, work, and find community. We acknowledge that here in the U.S. what we have was built on stolen land and by forced labor. We pay back this debt by keeping our eyes, ears, minds, and hearts open and settling for nothing less than justice, equity, peace, and love.
Finally, yoga's roots are thousands of years old and part of a larger set of traditions from indigenous practices from India, Africa, and other regions in the world--there is nothing new about embodied practices, but many have been lost, forgotten, or forced out of our cultural norms. The yoga practiced and taught at The SGC, a Center for Mind/Body Movement draws on a variety of traditions, mixing styles and approaches that blend breathing, embodied movement, and meditation. Sarah writes more about these practices and approaches in her blog and in her forthcoming book, American Yoga Demystified: Creative/Critical Insights for a Complex World and an Evolving Mind and Body.